Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

This week I was hit by the curse of WrapIt. More accurately, Sarah was hit by the curse of WrapIt. I had already quite happily given them some money, it's Sarah who has lost out since she hasn't received the present I bought her. And, sadly, I bought her present using a debit card so it's unlikely I'll get any money back.

But I thought I'd try nonetheless. If this Civil Service thing doesn't work out I think I'll go into the field of consumer rights, I do so enjoy getting what I'm entitled to.

So I wrote to KPMG, who have been appointed administrators of WrapIt, because the Guardian FAQs said there was no point writing to my card issuer because I had paid by debit card. KPMG wrote back and told me to speak to my card issuer. I think they're wrong, but I went in to HSBC today anyway to see what they could do. And there was a very helpful woman, and I'd brought all the pieces of paper I needed, so the transaction was on the whole very satisfactory. She has sent off a query to somewhere or other, and apparently they will contact me saying either yes, we will refund you or no, contact WrapIt, here's a letter proving we're not going to refund you. It's all a bit slow but at least I'm following the correct procedures.

Whilst I was there I converted my student account to a graduate account. As usual I confused them by graduating two years ago but still being a registered student until July 31st, but the woman very kindly put in my graduation date as 2008 instead of 2006 so I've got five more years of charge-free banking. My credit rating should have been boosted substantially by this since she took all the details of my new job, and apparently HSBC Graduate account holders qualify for preferential mortgage rates. Great. Actually all that means is you need a 5% deposit instead of 10%, but really who wants a 95% mortgage in the current economic climate? Not I.

Andy and I nearly went to Anglesey this weekend to do some watersports but we couldn't quite face the prospect of heading back to Wales so soon. Well, it wasn't really that, just that going away for the weekend would have made us feel very unsettled; we left Bangor on Sunday 3rd August, flew to Ireland on the Monday, stayed on the boat til the Saturday, spent two nights in Castleconnell, then flew back to Yorkshire at 6:40am (which meant a 4am start, it was disgusting). And we're off to London next weekend in the next leg of our mammoth journey. So we decided it would be nice to stay in one place for more than five days, just for a change.

Well I'd better go keep him company and maybe even cook some food. Salmon with some kind of delicious topping tonight, how healthy.